back to you
by xlissas
Summary: If I could do it all again, I know I'd go back to you. [NaruSaku, affair AU. Rating may change.] [Crossposted on AO3!]


A pink-haired woman sat her desk, her concentration flitting back and forth between the papers to her right and her monitor screen. Furious clicking could be heard from her mouse and keyboard as she mumbled to herself names of patients and their most private medical details. She knew that as head medic, she could have literally anyone on her staff handle this for her. But, if there was anything Uchiha Sakura learned in her short tenure as Konoha's hospital director, if she wanted anything done right, it had to be done herself.

Therefore, here she was with several more patient files to sift through nearly three hours after her actual shift had ended.

Sakura sighed deeply as she felt yet another headache coming on. Lithe fingers reached to pinch the bridge of her nose, as if that would somehow keep the pain at bay, and she closed her eyes in exhaustion.

" _Just a few more,"_ she thought, _"just a few more before I can allow myself to finally clock out."_

Steeling herself with a deep breath and quick shake of her arms, she got back to work and tried to ignore the clock on her wall practically screaming at her to go home. It had become a habit of hers, to stay well past the time everyone on day shift had gone home to their families, but she hadn't the energy to fight it anymore.

After all, she didn't really have a family to go home to.

She still had her ever-loving parents, of course. But they had warned her about her husband, time and time again. Three years into their marriage and Sakura's parents still had a persistent, growing mistrust in the Uchiha heir. So, she never felt it right to complain to them about the one thing they had tried to convince her to avoid. Even if, ultimately, her parents continually supported her and her decisions.

The medic was brought out of her brief musings by a soft knock at the door.

"Enter."

One of the night nurses, a brunette Sakura recognized as Sayuri, walked into her office, a beige folder filled to the brim with countless papers nestled against her chest.

"Uchiha-san, here's the last of the paperwork from the day shift," Sayuri said, a kind smile

spreading her lips as she offered over the folder. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you," the pink-haired medic said with a sigh as she took the pile of yet more paperwork and unceremoniously dropped it into her desk drawer before shutting it with a soft click. "And please, call me Sakura."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sakura turned back to her computer screen, her eyes red and sunken from lack of sleep. When she didn't hear her office door shut, she looked up to find her subordinate studying her, azure eyes flitting over her as she worried her bottom lip.

"Is there something you need, Sayuri-san?"

Seemingly embarrassed at being caught, the young woman jumped slightly with a small yelp.

"U-uh, no ma'am, I just… if I may, I think you should probably go home and get some sleep, Sakura-san…"

Sakura couldn't help but smile at the nurse for her concern. She was a relatively new hire, and Sakura was aware she was oftentimes unintentionally intimidating to newer staff. The older woman merely nodded and sighed with resignation.

"I suppose you're right. In the meantime, make sure this place doesn't crash and burn without me, yeah?"

When the nurse seemed unsure of whether or not to laugh, Sakura offered her a reassuring smile. This earned her a soft giggle from the brunette.

"Yes, ma'am!"

Once she had dismissed Sayuri and she was alone once more, Sakura began packing away her things for the night.

After double and triple checking all of her sensitive files were saved, she shut down her computer and grabbed her purse from the floor under her desk. She slung the strap over her shoulder and looked at the clock for the final time that night: 8:36PM.

As she walked through the seemingly endless, stark white hallways of the hospital, she couldn't help but reflect on just how far she had come since her academy days. She had reached top of her career at a record pace, becoming head medic and hospital director just shy of her 23rd birthday. It was long, tiring days like these that got her to where she was, and irritable as sleep deprivation could sometimes make her, it had been well worth it.

Those same long, tiring days also helped her stave off going home to an empty, loveless house.

As much as she wanted to be happy instead merely acting the part to save face, she knew that she hadn't been in a long time. She had her dream husband and career, but those facts alone didn't hide said husband's ever-growing absence. The more she had realized this, the more she had attempted to distract and drown herself with long days at the hospital or being out of the house whenever possible on the very few days off she allowed herself.

Sakura hadn't realized she had left the hospital until the cool night air bit at her skin, causing her to wrap her sweater tighter around her frame. After a brief moment of rubbing her arms to warm them, she set off in the direction of the Uchiha compound.

The old Uchiha main house was lonelier than it had ever been. Before their marriage, Sakura had done most of the cleaning without complaint, making sure it would be up to what she'd assumed to be Sasuke's standards. She had taken several days off, hoping her hard work would make her husband-to-be happy. However, he didn't even visit the old house, much less her, until the day of the wedding.

It pained her to think of her wedding. It sent a shiver up her spine — or maybe that was the wind — to think of just how far off her dreams had been from reality.

Even in her supposed wedding-day bliss, Haruno Sakura hadn't been blind, and she had certainly never been stupid. She knew, as much as everything within her screamed at her to deny it, that the wedding and even Sasuke's marriage to her was nothing but a formality. She told everyone, even Ino, even herself, the bold-faced lie that she and Sasuke were in fact in love and couldn't wait to spend the rest of their lives together.

At some point, she mused, maybe that statement were half-true.

She had loved him, yes, since she was a child.

But therein lied the issue - she had been a child. She didn't know what love was back then. And, if she were honest with herself, she probably still didn't. At the very least, she didn't know what it was like to love without pain. She didn't know what it was like to love someone who treated her right.

She did, a voice in the back of her mind whispered.

However, she buried the thought quickly, her steps increasing pace as if she could out-run it.

So the charade of Uchiha matriarch and marital bliss would continue on.

Lying to herself was, after all, one of her best talents.

As Sakura continued walking, doing her best to stop her depressing chain of thought, she realized she had walked a little too far from the Uchiha compound.

In her reverie, her feet had brought her to the memorial grounds on the outskirts of Konohagakure.

The minute she realized this, green met blue.

Her heart felt as if it had leapt into her throat, choking her into silence. She knew she should say something, even just a hello – after all, he was just an old friend. An old friend she barely spoke to anymore, but an old friend nonetheless.

"Sakura."

His voice seemed to truly bring him to her attention, as if he had been a phantom suddenly made real, and she managed to tear her gaze from his long enough to give the man before her a once over.

Naruto had really grown up, she had to admit to herself. She suddenly felt 15 again, seeing her best friend again for the first time in three years, how much taller he'd gotten, how mature he'd seemed. Sure, maturity was a façade fifteen-year-old Naruto couldn't hold up for very long.

However, twenty-three-year-old Naruto could. And he did it rather well.

"Naruto," she'd said after what seemed to be an eternity. She winced; she could hear the slight strain in her voice, and she prayed he either hadn't heard it or would choose to ignore it.

The blond's expression seemed to soften. So maybe he had heard it, the way that lump in her throat just wouldn't leave her be?

Maybe it was something else entirely?

Whatever the reason for his blue eyes looking at her like that, he simply said, "It's been a while."

She suddenly felt cold – probably just the wind, again – and crossed her arms over her torso to keep herself warm. The longer she simply looked at him, the warmer she seemed to feel, like a void she hadn't even been aware of had been filled. It had been what seemed like a lifetime since she'd properly spoken to Naruto, much less alone.

"Yeah… I guess it has."

She pretended not to notice how Naruto glanced her over, much like she had done to him, or the way he pressed his lips together in thought before speaking again. She couldn't stop herself from trying to read him as she had when they were younger. She was finding that not only was she out of practice, she hadn't the first clue what the blond could be thinking.

She didn't quite understand how he could feel like her long lost best friend but also like a complete stranger all at once.

"What're you doing here?"

Sakura's cheeks flushed; she was so caught up in seeing him again, she hadn't quite pieced together just why or how she ended up here. She had been on autopilot.

"I'm…not entirely sure," she mumbled. Her gaze shifted away from him, her lips pressed into a frown.

She was more than a little surprised to hear Naruto chuckle the slightest bit.

"It's not like you to wander around aimlessly, Sakura. Especially at night."

When she turned to him again, the corner of his mouth was upturned slightly in the smallest of grins. Her heart leapt into her throat again, and she willed with everything she had for it to go back down.

The Naruto before her really was a different man, in stature as well as status, but even in that little smirk, she could still see the goofball Naruto she had come to know and love.

Love.

Something else that needed to go back to wherever the hell it came from.

"I- I guess I just got distracted." She cleared her throat and readjusted her sweater protectively around her frame. "I was just on my way home."

"Which is the other way." That little smirk of his widened, and Sakura felt a familiar annoyance bubble in her chest.

"Shut up. Like I said, I got distracted."

"I'm sure, Sakura."

Rolling her eyes, Sakura huffed and turned slightly to leave. "I should get going."

"Hey…"

Sakura turned her head back to him.

"It was really good to see you, ya know."

Sakura stared back at him for a moment, as if she were taking him in for the very last time, before fully turning away from the blond.

"You…you too, Naruto."


End file.
